Salvation

Make them soap‑boilers and kitchen flunkeys, we are not going to send them into hell fire, for it takes a good Latter‑day Saint apostatized to get down that deep (did I say bottomless?) pit. A person, to become an angel of the Devil, has first to be a good Saint, and then deny the Lord who bought him.

When there was no whiskey to be had here, and we needed it for rational purposes, I built a house to make it in. When the distillery was almost completed and in good working order, an army was heard of in our vicinity and I shut up the works. I did not make a gallon of whiskey at my works, because it came here in great quantities, more than was needed. I could have made thousands of dollars from my still, which has ever since been as dead property. Have others followed my example in this? They have not, but there was a whiskey shop established here and another there. Some have even told me that they would starve if they did not make whiskey. I said to them, make it then, and be damned, for they will be damned anyhow. Am not I able to make whiskey? Yes; there stands the still and the still‑house this day, which I have never used and from which I might make thousands of dollars. Have I made whiskey and sold it in what some call Whiskey Street? No. Had I done so how many would have hailed me with, 'You are a good man, brother Brigham, and you are the right man to lead Israel; thank God for such a man: he keeps a whiskey shop, drinks liquor, trades with our enemies and hugs them to his heart as long as there is any money in their pockets, and takes them to his house and introduces them to his wives and daughters; what a blessed man brother Brigham is.'

Nothing is so much calculated to lead people to forsake sin as to take them by the hand, and watch over them with tenderness. When persons manifest the least kindness and love to me, O what power it has over my mind, while the opposite course has a tendency to harrow up all the harsh feelings and depress the human mind.

What did Jesus do? Why I do the things I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence. My Father worked out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same; and when I get my kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so that he may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take his place, and thereby become exalted myself.

If you do not accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser you will enter heaven... What many people call sin is not sin; I do many things to break down superstition, and I will break it down.

By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death...Many have supposed that the doctrine of translation was a doctrine whereby men were taken immediately into the presence of God, and into an eternal fullness, but this is a mistaken idea. Their place of habitation is that of a terrestrial order, and a place prepared for such characters he held in reserve to be ministering angels unto many planets... But we shall leave this subject of terrestrial bodies for another time.

Many persons think a prophet must be a good deal better than anybody else. Suppose I would condescend - yes, I will call it condescend, to be a great deal better than any of you. I would be raised to the highest heaven; and who should I have to accompany me?

Our heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive; and at the same time more terrible to the workers of iniquity, more awful in the executions of His punishments, and more ready to detect in every false way, than we are apt to suppose Him to be...

Who begat the Son of God? Infidels say that Jesus was a bastard, but let me tell you the truth concerning that matter. Our Father begat all the spirits that were, before any tabernacles were made. When our Father came into the garden, He came with His celestial body and brought one of His wives with Him and ate of the fruit of the garden until He could beget a tabernacle, and Adam is Michael or God and all the God that we have anything to do with. They eat of this fruit and formed the first tabernacle that was formed. And when the Virgin Mary was begotten with child, it was by the Father and in no other way, in no other way, only as we were begotten. I will tell you the truth as it is in God. The world don't know that Jesus Christ our elder brother was begotten by our Father in Heaven. Handle it as you please, it will either seal the damnation or salvation of man. He was begotten by the Father and not by the Holy Ghost.

There were no neutrals in the war in heaven. All took sides either with Christ or with Satan. Every man had his agency there, and men receive rewards here based upon their actions there, just as they will receive rewards hereafter for deeds done in the body. The Negro, evidently, is receiving the reward he merits.

From the days of Joseph Smith to the present, wicked and evilly‑disposed persons have fabricated false and slanderous stories to the effect that the Church, in the early days of this dispensation, engaged in a practice of blood atonement whereunder the blood of apostates and others was shed by the Church as an atonement for their sins... there is not one historical instance of so‑called blood atonement in this dispensation, nor has there been one event or occurrence whatever, of any nature, from which the slightest inference arises that any such practice either existed or was taught.... But under certain circumstances there are some serious sins for which the cleansing of Christ does not operate, and the law of God is that men must then have their own blood shed to atone for their sins."

Let us consider the great mercy of God for a moment. A Chinese, born in China with a dark skin, and with all the handicaps of that race, seems to have little opportunity. But think of the mercy of God to Chinese people who are willing to accept the gospel. In spite of whatever they might have done in the pre‑existence to justify being born over there as Chinamen, if they now, in this life, accept the gospel and live it the rest of their lives they can have the Priesthood, go to the temple and receive endowments and sealings, and that means they can have exaltation. Isn't the mercy of God marvelous?

Baptism is just as essential to salvation, as Faith and Repentance. Without being immersed in water no man can enter into the fulness of Celestial glory: for baptism is instututed for the remission of sins; and if a person does not take the necessary steps to obtain pardon of sins, of course, he cannot be saved in the kingdom of God.

Save for those few who defect to perdition after having known a fulness [sic], there is no habit, no addiction, no rebellion, no transgression, no offense exempted from the promise of complete forgiveness.

Any man or woman who has heard the Gospel and rejected it — not only those in the days of Noah, but any man or woman in this day who has had a good chance to receive and embrace the Gospel and enjoy its blessings and privileges, but who has been indifferent to these things, ignoring and neglecting them — such a person need not hope or anticipate that when he is dead the work can be done for him and he can gain celestial glory. Don't you Latter‑day Saints get the notion that a man can live in defiance or total indifference, having had a good chance — not just a casual chance or opportunity — to accept the Gospel and that when he dies you can go and do the work for him and have him receive every blessing that the faithful ones are entitled to.

I have not a doubt but there will be hundreds who will leave us and go away to our enemies. I wish they would go this fall: it might relieve us from much trouble; for if men turn traitors to God and His Servants, their blood will surely be shed, or else they will be damned, and that too according to their covenants.

To whatever extent the preaching on blood atonement may have influenced action, it would have been in relation to Mormon disciplinary action among its own members. In point would be a verbally reported case of a Mr. Johnson in Cedar City who was found guilty of adultery with his step‑daughter by a bishop's court and sentenced to death for atonement of his sin. According to the report of reputable eyewitnesses, judgment was executed with consent of the offender who went to his unconsecrated grave in full confidence of salvation through the shedding of his blood. Such a case, however primitive, is understandable within the means of this doctrine and the emotional extremes of the [Mormon] reformation.